Winter of the World (Century Trilogy 2)

Charlie broke up one of the biscuits, then took the dog on his lap. He held a piece of biscuit in his closed fist, letting Rusty sniff it, then opened his hand and allowed the dog to eat the morsel. He took another piece, making sure the dog knew he had it. Then he stood up and put the dog at his feet. Rusty kept an alert gaze on Charlie’s closed fist. ‘Walk to heel!’ Charlie said, and walked a few steps.

The dog followed him.

‘Good boy!’ Charlie said, and gave Rusty the biscuit.

‘That’s amazing!’ Daisy said.

‘After a while you won’t need the biscuit – he’ll do it for a pat. Then eventually he’ll do it automatically.’

‘Charlie, you are a genius!’

Charlie looked pleased. He had nice brown eyes, just like the dog, she observed. ‘Now you try,’ he said to Daisy.

She copied what Charlie had done, and achieved the same result.

‘See?’ said Charlie. ‘It’s not so hard.’

Daisy laughed with delight. ‘We should go into business,’ she said. ‘Farquharson and Peshkov, dog trainers.’

‘What a nice idea,’ he said, and he seemed to mean it.

This was going very well, Daisy thought.

She went to the table and poured two glasses of lemonade.

Standing beside her, he said: ‘I’m usually a bit shy with girls.’

No kidding, she thought, but she kept her mouth firmly closed.

‘But you’re so easy to talk to,’ he went on. He imagined that was a happy accident.

As she handed a glass to him she fumbled, spilling lemonade on him. ‘Oh, how clumsy!’ she cried.

‘It’s nothing,’ he said, but the drink had wet his linen blazer and his white cotton trousers. He pulled out a handkerchief and began to mop it.

‘Here, let me,’ said Daisy, and she took the handkerchief from his large hand.

She moved intimately close to pat his lapel. He went still, and she knew he could smell her Jean Nate perfume – lavender notes on top, musk underneath. She brushed the handkerchief caressingly over the front of his jacket, though there was no spill there. ‘Almost done,’ she said as if she regretted having to stop soon.

Then she went down on one knee as if worshipping him. She began to blot the wet patches on his pants with butterfly lightness. As she stroked his thigh she put on a look of alluring innocence and looked up. He was staring down at her, breathing hard through his open mouth, mesmerized.

(iv)

Woody Dewar impatiently inspected the yacht Sprinter, checking that the kids had made everything shipshape. She was a forty-eight-foot racing ketch, long and slender like a knife. Dave Rouzrokh had loaned her to the Shipmates, a club Woody belonged to that took the sons of Buffalo’s unemployed out on Lake Erie and taught them the rudiments of sailing. Woody was glad to see that the dock lines and fenders were set, the sails furled, the halyards tied off, and all the other lines neatly coiled.

His brother Chuck, a year younger at fourteen, was on the dock already, joshing with a couple of coloured kids. Chuck had an easygoing manner that enabled him to get on with everyone. Woody, who wanted to go into politics like their father, envied Chuck’s effortless charm.

The boys wore nothing but shorts and sandals, and the three on the dock looked a picture of youthful strength and vitality. Woody would have liked to have taken a photograph, if he had had his camera with him. He was a keen photographer and had built a darkroom at home so that he could develop and print his own pictures.

Satisfied that the Sprinter was being left as they had found her this morning, Woody jumped on to the dock. A group of a dozen youngsters left the boatyard together, windswept and sunburned, aching pleasantly from their exertions, laughing as they relived the day’s blunders and pratfalls and jokes.

The gap between the two rich brothers and the crowd of poor boys had vanished when they were out on the water, working together to control the yacht, but now it reappeared in the parking lot of the Buffalo Yacht Club. Two vehicles stood side by side: Senator Dewar’s Chrysler Airflow, with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel, for Woody and Chuck; and a Chevrolet Roadster pickup truck with two wooden benches in the back for the others. Woody felt embarrassed, saying goodbye as the chauffeur held the door for him, but the boys did not seem to care, thanking him and saying: ‘See you next Saturday!’

As they drove up Delaware Avenue, Woody said: ‘That was fun, though I’m not sure how much good it does.’

Chuck was surprised. ‘Why?’

‘Well, we’re not helping their fathers find jobs, and that’s the only thing that really counts.’

‘It might help the sons get work in a few years’ time.’ Buffalo was a port city: in normal times there were thousands of jobs on merchant ships plying the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal, as well as on pleasure craft.

‘Provided the President can get the economy moving again.’